Carol had heard about YN 246 from one of her German ‘friends’ who just happened to be a Naval Architect-ress, or whatever the feminine form of Architect was, and that had been about a year ago, so she made her way quickly to Maria’s suite to discuss her idea with her. After being excitedly told about it, and then realising that all Carol wanted to do was talk, Maria went back to sleep, but not being too put off by Maria’s response she then handed over her watch to the Third Officer, that was what Third Officers were for, found a computer, and then started to compile as much information as she could about YN 246, which turned out to be virtually nothing, so in desperation she rang the ship yard. It was one o’clock here, six o’clock in the morning in Germany, so she doubted that there would be anyone there that she could talk too, but she would give it a try anyway, and it was a good start when she found the switchboard manned, so she asked to speak to someone in authority. To her surprise she got Herr Flik, the owner of the yard, and he was a very worried man, yet another order was in the process of going down the tubes and he was becoming even more worried by the minute. First things first, ‘is YN 246 still in its cocoon?’ she asked (she was English so she instinctively knew that everyone else spoke it as well).
‘Yes’ came the reply.
‘How long had it been in it?’
‘Twenty-two months’.
‘Had a buyer been found for it yet?’
‘I wish’ he groaned, and then Carol ‘hypothetically’ asked if it would be possible to convert YN 246 into a private yacht. That got Herr Flik’s attention 100%, if this wasn’t some mad fräulein on a bender, and he could just pull this off, it might tide the ship yard over the recession, perhaps he wouldn’t have to lay off any of his key workers after all. She explained that at the moment this was only ‘pie in the sky’, what she urgently required to enable her to take the plan on to its next stage were details, drawings, and possible a conversion scheme. Normally at this stage Herr Flik would have hung up the phone and thought ‘dumkoff’, but desperate times require desperate measures so on another line he instructed the switchboard operator to rouse all the architects and tell them he wanted them, or their resignations at or on their boards in thirty minutes, and for the remainder of the night every printer and fax machine on board the Sea Sprite was churning out bumf for her, first in German, then after another phone call, in English. All the Naval Architects, excluding her ‘friend’ who had moved on to pastures new a few months earlier, were at their boards, or into their CAD programmes in record time, and each one was given the same instruction, come up with something quick, and think big.